


A Good Spy is Hard To Find

by arkasha1983



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Animal Death, Backstory, Bar Fight, Blackmail, Blood and Violence, Caring Illya, Country & Western, Death, Death Threats, Drama, Drama & Romance, Everyone fucking falls in love with Illya okay, F/M, False Identity, Feelings, First Kiss, Fist Fights, Hurt Napoleon, Hurt/Comfort, Illya taking care of Napoleon's wounds, Implied Sexual Content, Kidnapping, Kissing in the Rain, Love Triangles, Love/Hate, M/M, Napoleon Whump, Napoleon can't fight how he feels, Non-Explicit Sex, Original Character(s), Partner Betrayal, Police Brutality, Psychological Torture, Religious Content, Romance, Secret Relationship, Sexual Tension, Southern Gothic, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. AU, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-25 02:28:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10754844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arkasha1983/pseuds/arkasha1983
Summary: "Napoleon only realizes he’s been crying when he falls to his knees in the rented room he knows so well. He has slipped inside unheard, despite his blurred sight. He has picked the key from under the doormat, where he knew he would find it. He has dragged his dirty boots on the consumed flooring, his murderous intentions giving in to exhaustion and malaise. He has dropped down just in time to grab the sheets on the bed with two fists, head resting on the edge of Illya’s side of the mattress."Southern Gothic AU. Gaby and Napoleon are an un-happily married couple in rural Louisiana. Spy-on-the-run turned priest Illya Kuryakin stumbles by their farmhouse. Romance and betrayal ensue.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The AU nobody asked for!
> 
> I was mainly inspired by Pasolini's Teorema, True Detective and The Left Hand of God (intro-wise).  
> Title probably misleading, ripping off the Queen of Gothic Americana, Flannery O'Connor.
> 
> Supposed to be really:  
> \- short (5-6 chapter tops?)  
> \- dark dark dark dark
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy :-)

She remembers the day she first saw him.

At dusk, the peach and fire shades of the sky were only mellowed, watered down by a light rain, the remnants of a week-long downpour. Gaby was in the backyard, wet laundry soft under her fingers – her laced dress, her summer one, her husbands’ shirts and undershirts, blankets and rags and the handkerchief she wore around her head in the fields – all of them white and clean, so unlike the stranger before his eyes. She saw him steering the horse with just his legs, in a fluid and confident motion; the beast had mud up to its hips and shoulders. The same mud smeared the man’s black gown – Gaby had seen him, and she had known right away. Here he was, having waded swamps and rivers, drenched to the bone; nothing but a priest, finally at destination.

Their eyes had met for the fraction of a second, much less than the length of a thunder rumble. His outline, a tall man with broad shoulders, cut mercilessly through the wet heat, black against the flaming golden evening. On that moist August sunset, under that wide dark hat of his, she didn’t have the chance to dip in the blue of the man’s eyes. Now that her long hair fall down her shoulders, stroking his, a raw joy runs like electricity down her spine when she realizes how it feels to drown in them.

He moves a hand upwards to her face, to pull aside the silky curtains from her eyes. Gaby looks down at him, at the adoring smile stretching his lips open. She reaches down to kiss it, and pulls back just to question those very lips with hers.

“Who are you, really?”, and her voice is hushed, a murmur.

“That’s for you to discover”, he replies, smile still not fading.

Gaby can’t really figure out his accent, so different from anything she’s ever heard in her life – that probably counts for nothing, she thinks to herself, as she’s never left Louisiana. Memories of weekends spent at her aunt’s in New Orleans – the colors, the music, all that explosion of big city life – are of no help to her. He has the refined qualities of a metropolitan dweller, but none of the arrogance. The man’s voice is a whispered song in her ears, a song whose rhythm can be at once soothing and severe; neat and sharp around the edges, but far from being harsh.

“Elias… is it your real name?”

He doesn’t say. Eventually, like any other Sunday afternoon, Gaby gives up. His skin feels like honey below her body, under her cupping, stroking and gentle palms. Or perhaps it’s just the lighting of the little bedroom, a wide but delicate window trembling with every gush of breeze in its wooden frame, powerless to the piercing of sun-rays, washing over their shared nakedness like a golden tide, if the tide came into strands and blades – like the wheat blades she bends over and sweats for, every day.

Gaby never averts her gaze, never breaks eye contacts until he’s overcome and has to close his own pair of blues, arching his back on the mattress, a low moan escaping from his chest. Gaby lets a flat hand slide from his cheekbone to the very lower edge of his ribcage, raising and falling, raising and falling. She tries to placate his ecstatic lament with her passionate, tender touch, but in the end she can’t help but join him in pleasure. Only then, she rolls carefully to his side.

The lay in bed for hours, in silence. Sometimes, like today, they face each other, sometimes they just stare at the ceiling, their fingers entangled. The first time he held her hand, Gaby had expected it to feel rough, to find the shape of scars gone white hidden in his life line, heart line, destiny line, whatever. But they’re not – his hands are strong, and warm, and smooth. And every other time, she has to remind herself not to be fooled by Elias’ appearance, statuesque and chiseled; this man of intellect, a man of letters and scriptures and knowledge. A million years away from her husband – handsome and outspoken, brazen and insolent, strength personified, and not much else. A brawny bundle of proud belligerence, Napoleon. No, Gaby sighs, without saying; it didn’t take that much for her to fall for this stranger, to find in him exactly what she needed.

Illya props himself up on an elbow, head resting upon the fist of his hand, the other set idly on Gaby’s side. Of course Elias isn’t his real name, but lying is not an option. He’s drawn to her, inesorably, as sure as rock or a body fall to the bottom of a cliff once in the air. He fell into her arms at a time when love seemed impossible, when all he wanted was to get away, to get away, to get away. Escape the catastrophe of his destiny and take shelter in his new-found conviction, a self-imposed new identity. But instead, he found her eyes, and he found her arms, and he found her heart. He wanted to survive, she knew how to keep him alive.

“Do you want me to read something to you?”, he finally asks, pushing memories and dark thoughts aside. They’re no use – not even if he gathered all that he feared for and suffered through his lifetime, that wouldn’t still be enough to obfuscate the simple, luminous delight she is to him, when he’s with her.

Gaby simply nods, and watches him sit up on the bed, reaching for the small leather bible set on the wobbly nightstand. This can’t be a sin, she thinks to herself – not with him, not like this. She sits up with her back against the wall too, and Illya is quick to wrap an arm around her shoulder. Gaby rests her head on his chest, and wraps both hands against one of his. Illya holds up the Bible, middle and index finger along its spine. He clears his voice.

“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love… I am nothing.”

He stops and turns his head to the side. Their eyes meet, then their mouths. Light, symbolic. Illya continues.

“Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know… in part and we prophesy in part… but when completeness comes…”

Gaby reaches with one hand to the Bible, guiding Illya to close it. He lets it drop on the mattress, turning to his lover again, following through with her movements as she lays down once more. He plants a kiss where her collarbones meet, and then they’re eyes into eyes again.

Gaby can feel the sun shining darker outside, and upon her face, their time together running out. She can feel _Elias_ ’, Illya’s kisses rushing south again, more passionate, desperate, burning all over her, reluctant to let go. And he is. He is all that she think he is, and more.

Finally, she stretches an arm and sinks a hand into the golden silk of his hair, and her heart is stuttering and heavy as she utters those words they both hate so much, “You should go now. He’ll be home soon.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Illya's POV + Illya / Napoleon.  
> Wasn't expecting for this chapter to turn out this long (???), but I felt the duty to add those grimy landscape whatever details.
> 
> Also featuring:  
> \- priest!Illya strolling about (straight into trouble)  
> \- some (tiny) action (wait for it)  
> \- microscopic Napoleon backstory  
> \- Napoleon generally being a Problematic Southern Man (Illya kinda likes it)
> 
> Rate how weird this is to read on a scale from 0-10.  
> Comments and whatever (yell at me) appreciated :-)

On Tuesday, Illya decides he can no longer wait until mass to see her. Sure, she’d be there – third row on the left, right on time, only second to the milkman and the village idiot. Illya can almost see her, hair tied up in a loose bun, wearing her mint green dress with the ruches at the front – the dress whose folds and embroidery he knows by heart, whose buttons and laces he could undo with eyes closed. She’d be there, sitting right next to her husband. Without fail, she’d stand up and walk to the altar, and take the host between her lips, from his hands. The husband, impatient and absent, would leave earlier for his Sunday drink, and so they’d meet after the function, Illya and her, in the shadow of the bell tower and the steeple. They’d exchange some words and go their separate ways.

Of course, their ritual wouldn’t begin until afternoon.

This week, Illya has no patience for any of this. He combs his hair in the small, rusted mirror of his rented room, and in his mind he can’t stop thinking about the one thousand different ways Gaby will ruffle it. He locks his gun inside a cracked and worm-eaten Victorian dresser – a risky precaution for the CIA’s Most Wanted, but he can’t help it. It’s not a question of secrecy – he’d tell her all. He’d confess and come clean to her, baptized in truth. But it’s not necessary; with Gaby, his past has no reason, no chance to intrude.

He puts out his cigarette and grabs his Bible. He heads out of town.

The buildings at the horizon become smaller and smaller, until the landscape transforms to nothing but fields of dry grass, high grass, no grass at all. The golden of wheat and the ash of wild brushwood tremble in a soft breeze. Far on his left, Illya can almost hear the toxic gargling on the swamps; on his right, for acres and acres, the rustling of the sugar cane fields; toads croaking, snakes slithering, insects buzzing. The sky is heavy, and it seems to weigh on the ground.

The dirt road creaks under Illya’s Oxford shoes, dust raising in clouds at his feet. It’s gonna rain soon, he thinks to himself, as a single drop of sweat drips from his nape, running between his shoulder blades under the stiff cloth of his black shirt. Illya slips two fingers behind his collar and tugs at it.

The farmhouse towers in the distance, on a flat hill on his left; run-down, looking somewhat crooked. Illya looks up at the window on the top floor and secretly wishes for Gaby to pull aside the patched-up curtains, and smile down at him.

Illya rushes up the hill, trading gravel with wet soil and patches of grass. He is about to step on the porch, anticipating the joy of hearing it squeak its eerie squeak, when the entrance door springs open under the boot of the man of the house.

Illya knows him, but just by fame and sight. Napoleon squints at him, caught off-guard. His white shirt is untucked, unbuttoned way past his chest, heaving. In his hand, holding it by the neck, there’s an empty wine bottle; under his arm a blonde, around his waist a brunette. Both women don’t seem to notice their mute exchange, but keep giggling, the sight of the village priest standing at the foot of the steps perhaps even more entertaining. Hair falls over their shoulders in curled locks, unevenly; here and there, it makes up for their bare skin, where straps and buttons have ceased to do their job. None of them is Gaby, Illya registers, and none of them appears to be wanting to let go of Napoleon any soon.

The blond girl cups her hand around Napoleon’s ear, heir voluptuous body pressed against his side. Napoleon pulls away from the whispers, and the woman tilts her head back, letting herself go to crazed laughter. The voice of a young man yells from inside the house, “Where do you people think you’re going? Napoleon, come back!”

Illya watches the scene, unable to utter any word at all, nor to move. Arms limp at his sides, he clutches the Bible in one hand, and tightens the other into a fist. Finally, Napoleon speaks.

“Lost, Father?”

Illya is quick to notice that the man’s speech is nothing short of slurred, tinged with a delirious resentment. Despite a choir of complaints, Napoleon pulls himself free of both his cheerful companions and drops the bottle. The glass doesn’t break, but it rolls down the porch steps, met by the tip of Illya’s shoes. Then, the silvery sound of the girls’ joint lament turns into loud shrills as Napoleon reaches for the back pocket of his work trousers, pulling out what Illya promptly identifies as a Colt .45. He retreats of a couple of steps.

“Go back inside,” Napoleon urges the girls, removing the safety, “Get dressed, go on home. Tell Connor.”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt your little party.” Illya intervenes, but no remorse can be traced in his voice. In a swirl of frills and light cotton, the girls  run back into the house.

“Turn around.” Napoleon orders, shaking the gun about to dissimulate his shaky hold. Illya obeys, hands up – still holding that Bible. He has played this game one million times too many, all over the world. He just doesn’t expect Louisiana to be the match point.

Illya can feel the heavy mouth of the barrel pressed against his lower back. Napoleon leans in it, “Let’s take a walk, Father. The metal loses contact with your priest shirt, I shoot. As simple as that.”

They walk downhill, all the way back to the dirt road, and that’s when the sky bursts into tears. Everything on Earth turns into mud – the dust, the gravel, the grass, the crops. The swamps get darker. Illya tries his best not to slip out of the world.

“Are you sure you want to commit murder on a day like this?”

“Enough clouds in the sky. ‘Supposed to get harder for God to watch.”

“They’ll be gone soon.”

The ground goes flat again, and Napoleon directs him to the woods. Illya doesn’t know much about plants and their leaves, trees and their branches, flowers and their thorns – but there’s something wicked about the place, something venomous. Rain falls on the green gone black and on the grey gone blue, then upon them. Fronds beat around at Illya’s face and arms and chest – Napoleon pushes him forward without any care, and Illya’s shirt gets ripped somewhere over his heart.

“Funny way to get acquainted.” Napoleon says, but no one is laughing. “You had to pick my payday to come around. Unfortunate.”

“Guess there’ll be no other occasions to make up for it.” Illya replies dryly. He closes his eyes and thinks about Gaby. He imagines her walking past shop windows, face lit up by the bright pink neon of some Drugstore, rushing to find shelter from the water pouring down. Or sitting in the parish house, knitting children sweaters for winter to come, to give them to charity.

Gaby, Gaby, Gaby.

Napoleon presses the gun harder against him, one last time, and then Illya cannot feel anything at all. The rhythm of rain has changed. Illya opens his eyes and turns around.

A round clearing extends at their feet, framed by the blackened bark of trees in every direction, and by a large frothing swamp on its north-eastern edge. The soil has gone soft and the smell of the grass grows acrid, unpleasant.

“Enough.” Napoleon whispers, fatigued, drenched to the bone. His gun arm has gone limp along his side, and the barrel is pointed at the ground. His eyelids beat against the falling raindrops, and a lone black curl is pressed on his forehead. A sly smile parts his lips.

A dangerous man, that’s what Gaby told Illya. Napoleon had killed more than a man in what the local Police had labeled as _unpleasant accidents_ – too scared to do anything about it. Bar fights, fists and knives, duels of honor, showdowns. Gaby told Illya how Napoleon had broken a man’s jaw in full daylight, because he had whistled one whistle too many at his spouse’s expense. But still – Napoleon wouldn’t touch her. Not with his hands, not with his mouth. Not a caress, not a kiss. Not outside, nor in the house.

“I know everything about you, _priest_.” Napoleon takes one step closer, “ _They_ said you would come. They told me _all_ there is to know. Weeks and weeks before you—“

“You’re lying.” Illya stiffens. He can feel his heart racing.

“I’m just a country boy. I live in a decrepit, inherited farmhouse. I own no animals, no land. I break my back in the fields every day. When I don’t, I cheat on my wife. I have no time for games.”

Illya brings a hand to his own face and touches blood. Blood, rain and dirt. Napoleon grabs that very hand, his fingers sliding to hold Illya by the wrist.

“What do you want?” Illya asks, blood seething.

“What do _you_ want, _Illya_?”

Napoleon knows his real name.

Illya doesn’t think about it, but just strikes Napoleon with his clutched hand. Only then, he realizes he must have lost his Bible somewhere down the hill. He can see its light pages being whipped by wind, words fading in rivulets of ink under the rain – sacred stories pouring into the cursed ground. It makes no difference now.

Napoleon falls over, but is fast enough to grasp at both of Illya’s shoulders to take him down with him. The Colt lands with a flaccid thud. They roll over the wet ground in a struggle for control, legs angled around each other, bending and kicking at air like those of asphyxiating men.

Napoleon manages to tower over Illya, astride him; he raises his fist twice, and Illya dodges once. The second blow lands on his face like thunder, and he can’t tell blood from rain anymore. He looks up at the lead and livid sky where trees don’t crowd the sight; crows circle over them, their caws muted by the sound of rain.

“Not bad for a Servant of God,” Napoleon mocks, “Did you learn that from The Old or The New Testament?”

Illya replies by grabbing Napoleon by the ragged edges of his shirt. He tries rolling him over on his back again, levering on his heels, knees bent, but the terrain is too soft, and his shoes dig and slip on it to no avail. Napoleon holds him down, pushing down on Illya’s chest with both hands.

“So what do you think _Father_ , is my soul beyond salvation?”

“What did they promise you?” Illya gasps, ignoring the question.

“A derisory sum of money. Clearing my criminal record, but no one around here thinks I have one anyway.” Napoleon’s hands clutch at the front of Illya’s shirt, and the rip in the cloth stretches wider. He continues, his voice lower, deeper, “Nothing more than what you could give me. I’m a man of simple pleasures.”

The pounding in Illya’s chest comes to a halt – he lets go of Napoleon’s shirt and slowly, despite Napoleon’s weight pressing down on his groin, he props himself up on his elbows first, then his palms. Napoleon lets him do that, his eyes shining wild through the rain needles.

“You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into.” Illya says, trying to sound calm.

Napoleon frowns in response, and in a burst forth of muscles that’s too fast and unexpected to prevent or react to, he takes Illya’s head into his hands and presses his mouth against his. Their teeth almost clash. Illya loses his balance, and holds onto Napoleon’s shirt once again.

Again, they are rolling on the ground – for a moment, Illya pulls away, looking down at Napoleon’s face once more. His eyes are hungry, his lips and the sharp line of his cheekbones is smeared with Illya’s blood. Illya lingers over him for a handful of panting, breathless seconds, and with his thumb he wipes the red streak off Napoleon’s mouth. The man looks intoxicated, and Illya can’t tell exactly from what anymore.

There’s nowhere to hide away from the rain and cold, but the raging warmth of each other.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1/2 half = Illya/Napoleon feat. testosterone fueled conversation  
> 1/2 half = Illya/Gaby, mostly ~Hurt & Comf. + Tragedy & Mystery~
> 
> I officially do not know what I'm writing anymore, and that's just partly cause I write at like 2:00 AM in some sort of sleep-deprived stupor? Everyone please forgive me.

Something about being with Napoleon makes Illya’s insides twist and turn. As if his entrails were a pit of dormant snakes – awakened now, slithering and entwined, coiled around each other and hissing in impossible convolutions, skin wet and glistening, enclosed in his own darkness.

Illya sees him, bare as a man can be. He listens to his every vibration; the guttural groans, the hoarse whispers, the husky suggestions. He can hear him when he tries to hold back. He feels him, twitching against him – and finally relaxing under his touch. He moves with him.

And there’s a deadly aftertaste to all of this, Illya thinks to himself, much like having blood between your teeth. Like de-activating a time-bomb with a Makarov pointed at your right temple, like his first car chase in snowy Moscow, 4:00 AM, 1955; like sneaking in the hotel room of Saudi Arabia’s Prime Minister, New Year’s Eve, 1962. Slipping Rohypnol in some Yakuza contact’s drink at a night club in Vladivostok, running on thin ice while being on fire, free-falling in the Pacific Ocean, just outside Honolulu Harbor.

There are things about Napoleon that he cannot understand, nor de-code. No locks, no short-cuts in. Yet, Illya skips the part where he should tread lightly. He reaches inside him with all his weight.

Here comes the adrenaline rush, and then all he can do is sweat his way out of every down. This time, the blood in his mouth tastes sweeter. The luxury to indulge in any kind of self-destructive habit was never an option. His surroundings were always enough.

Napoleon has promised, but Illya can’t tell exactly what. Napoleon hasn’t picked a side, he has just given himself to Illya – given or imposed himself, as some sort of pawn.

Illya looks past the doorless frame of the bathroom, at the deserted battlefield of his bed in the next room, unmade. Then he looks at Napoleon, back turned to him, slicking back his raven hair in the mirror. Droplets stop and go along Napoleon’s shoulders, right to the edge of his deltoids, and then fall on the bathroom floor. They shine in the amber light of morning and Illya follows them while he rubs at his own nape with a sponge, dipping it in the turbid water of the tub from time to time.

“What?” Napoleon catches Illya’s eyes in the mirror.

“Nothing.”

“There’s something.”

“Just wondering how long it will take for you to turn me in. Thinking about one reasonable explanation why I’m even gifting you with this doubt.”

Napoleon turns to him, “Wanna take a swing at me?” He opens his arms and gestures at his bare chest for Illya to come closer, to try something, “Many swamps to drop a body around here. Rain is so acid you’d be in the clear in a couple of days. Trust m—“

“Napoleon, I didn’t mean that.”

“You don’t trust me, that’s it – and you shouldn’t either. Your problem is that you really think I’m afraid of a few big shots in nice suits, coming around to ask about you, telling me what to do and when and how.”

“You made a deal with them, didn’t you?” Illya drops his sponge, lets it float on the water.

“Well, let me tell you something, brother – I run this fucking town. People have a problem, they come to me. These guys, they knew about me. Might not have brains, might not have money—“

“They’ll come for you. They don’t joke around. When it all comes down to me leaving this town—“

Napoleon starts walking towards the bathtub, his suspenders down, dangling to knees height, “I want you. Fuck them. I want what I want. Ain’t anybody going to tell me what to—“

“You’re endangering yourself.”

“I’ve killed men for much less.”

Napoleon crouches by the tub. He places one hand on Illya’s knee, emerging from the filthy water like a white stone, and the other on the back of his neck. His palms feel rough, his lips rougher. Illya wraps a wet arm around Napoleon’s shoulders.

Napoleon slips out of the kiss and gets up, “You better get ready for mass, Father. If only they knew what you look like when you pray under your breath.”

One of them knows, Illya thinks. He hasn’t seen Gaby since Sunday. Nothing abnormal in her book, he realizes, but in the one he’s reading a couple of lines have been crossed off, some words misspelled, each letter printed on the page by a drunken machine.

He stands up in the tub, following in Napoleon’s steps to the bedroom. Napoleon stops to turn and look at him, hand on the doorframe, “A priest,” and a smirk forms on his face, “Nobody in their right minds would buy into that for a second.” Illya can feel Napoleon’s eyes heavy, all over him, “Just this bunch of simpletons.”

“It was easier for you. You knew.”

“It’s not that. You’re more dangerous than you’d like to admit. Bet you’ve killed more than I ever dreamed of.”

“You should sleep less if you dream of such things.” Illya snaps back, walking to the doorframe. Napoleon stops him at the threshold, grabbing Illya by the wrist.

“Since I met you, I get no sleep at all.”

***

“Such a beautiful sermon, Father. Thank you for gifting our community with such inspiring words.”

Gaby’s face looks tired, her eyes as bright as ever, but lit with concern. Her words come out rushed from her lips, un-matching the quiet benevolence of her gratitude. Illya does his best not to rearrange his muscles into a frown; he would place a hand on her cheek, and he’s sure she’d take that very hand in hers, learning her face in. But the sun is too high over the church-yard, and there are too many people around them, just pretending to mind their business.

“Are you okay?” Illya blurts out; he finds himself taking one of her hands in his.

Gaby tilts her head to the side, looking away.

“Gabrielle, please.”

His free hand is now on her cheek; she does not lean in, but trembling words escape her mouth.

“I haven’t seen Napoleon in a week. You saw he wasn’t here today – this is the longest he’s been gone. I hear strange noises at night. I’m afraid he’s in trouble again.”

Illya walks her home. They walk side by side; when the landscape turns wild and desolate enough, he wraps an arm around her. He only stops to take off his black blazer, and lay it on Gaby’s shoulders. She looks up at him, a tear sparkling in her eye, on the edge of its fall.

“Don’t.” Illya says softly, “I’m here now.”

Gaby looks away. Illya thinks she must find it ridiculous – a simple man of God, what could he possibly do for her now? To protect her from the obscenely earthly misdeeds of her husband? What does this priest, this foreigner, know about the laws of their godforsaken town, rules written in dust and gravel, traced with blood and sweat?

“You don’t how it was… you don’t know what happened the last time.”

No, Illya doesn’t know. He wishes he could really be the man he used to be – he wishes he could tell her, ask her to just run away together. But for now, what he can do is carry her inside the house, lay her on the bed, watch over her sleep. Wait for Napoleon and tell him the whys and the hows it is over. Leave town without notice, for the sake of both of them.

Not even that – it’s not that easy. It is too late now.

It’s hard to believe the farmhouse could ever look any scarier, but today wicked imagination becomes reality. As it begins to thunder in the distance, thin veins of electricity whipping at the white sky, Illya turns to Gaby and watches her cover her mouth with both hands. The blazer slides off her shoulders, landing on the grass and the mud like a dead crow. Illya has to grip Gaby by both her shoulders as her knees give out, not to let hurt herself while she falls.

Red paint trickles from the old wood of the façade, in a thick and slow flow. It drips on the porch, down the steps, and it smears its way on the grass around the west side of the yard. Illya stares in horror.

YOU ARE BEING WATCHED

A louder rumble and rain starts pouring down in buckets. Before Illya can react, Gaby gets up and starts running; she follows the spots and stains around the left side of the house, looking darker in the rainstorm, paint hardening the blades like clotted blood, streaking up the walls again. Gaby calls Illya, at the top of her lungs. Then, she lets out a scream.

Illya rushes to her side – he stumbles, soil turned into black slime. As he gets up, wiping a black palm on his trousers, he damns it all to hell – the CIA, the KGB, Napoleon, the South, the USA, himself. Everyone but Gabrielle.

GOD KNOWS EVERYTHING

For a second, his gaze flashes on the side of the house – christened wood, not even the glass of the windows being spared. He doesn’t register the words, but outrage and fury speed the flow in his veins.

Gaby is on her knees again; this time, she’s bended over something laying on the ground – S I N N E R S. Illya falls by her side in a similar pose. Through the rain and the fog starting to rise in the valley, he realizes the word is painted over something; a large bundle, something resembling a smooth boulder. He lays a hand on the paint, just to feel the velvet warmth of horse skin. Illya’s gaze moves to the left, past Gaby, up the horse’s head – yet he has to do this twice, unable to understand.

“They dipped her whole head in their damned paint!” Gaby cries out, “They killed her!”

She strokes the horse’s mane, its hair resembling the stems of exotic flowers, venomous, “They knew it would kill her.”

“Gaby.”

“They knew…”

“Gaby, look at me.”

Illya has long removed his eyes from the animal, his heads now turned to Gaby, waiting for her eyes to meet his. Eventually, she finds them, and she falls onto his chest. He locks her in a hug that is full of rain, of paint, of sobs and death.

“They knew she was pregnant.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Makarov = popular Sovietic gun
> 
> I'm really so sorry about that horse.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1/2 half: Gaby+Illya (feat. dead horse) aw aw aw  
> 1/2 Napoleon gets into TROUBLE with both his recent and remote past (feels bad bro).
> 
> Exams + work are murdering me! I'm sorry for the long wait.  
> This was a messy update. Not a good chapter, but a necessary one (???)
> 
> As usual, /youtuber's voice/ comment rate and subscribe :-)  
> (And tell me whether this sucks or not)

It is Illya who buries the horse in the backyard.

He had to pull Gaby away from the scene. Holding her tight to his chest was of no use. So he carried her in his arms, inside the house, just like he had imagined – but not quite why. He delivered her to the kitchen table; he looked at her in pain. At her – sitting there and trembling. He stole a worn-out woolen shawl from the stillness of the rocking chair, laid it on her shoulders, and planted a kiss on her forehead before heading out.

No hole seems too deep for him, as he keeps shoveling at the black earth in a controlled rage, rhythmical and relentless. Rain and sweat become him, the flame in his eyes burning dull in the shadows of the crooked, violated house. Fog embraces him, and wind whips at his back. From time to time, lighting bolts hit trees and patches of distant ground, and Gaby heads to the window to look at him behind the torn curtains, the tears, and the storm.

Illya groans when it’s time to drag the animal to its eternal sleep, to the bottom of its wet and miserable grave – in his mind, he wishes to out-roar the storm. His hold on the shovel loosens with each hit and dig, but he doesn’t stop. His hands are shaking when the last grain of soil falls into place over the carcass.

Illya plants the shovel in the ground and falls to his knees.

The pendulum swings 4:00 PM. Every other Sunday, they’d be upstairs, arms around each other, heaving in one heave, breathing in and out each other’s breaths. But today, the air is too thick. The ground is too deep, too dark. The smell of the valley is too strong, and their heart and bones feel heavier, as if the rain had fed them swollen, weaker.

“You should go and change.” Illya whispers softly.

Gaby is standing in the kitchen, back turned to him, busy with chipped porcelain cups and a hissing kettle. Her dress drips on the floor boards. For a moment, images of Napoleon slip through the cracks of Illya’s mind.

“I don’t want you to get sick.” Illya insists, and he stands up from one of the chair around the maple wood table. He walks to where she is, and places a light hand on her shoulders, “Aren’t you cold?”

“Yes.” But she doesn’t turn. The cup rattles on its little plate, “We’re out of milk, I’m sorry.”

“Gaby.”

Illya’s hands both move to her hair. He runs a hand through it slowly, as if to comb it, and with the other he unglues it from her neck, her skin, her dress. He clutches and squeezes the locks with care, to let them drip and dry. His palms are wet again.

Gaby turns to him, but too fast for her nerves to allow it; the tea overflows like a crazed tide of blood and soil, and it all comes shattering to the floor. She crouches to pick up the pieces, and Illya follows.

“We don’t have to talk about this, but I need to know you’re okay.” Illya tries, turning a large piece in his hands. He looks at Gaby, gaze lowered to the floor, fumbling with the fragments, clumsy and determined to avoid his eyes; and although he can’t see hers, he knows exactly the kind of light of which they’re shining now.

“You’re right to blame me for what—“

“Please, stop talking. I want you to be here, now more than ever.”

Gaby raises her head to stare back at Illya, and only then he realizes how wrong he was – there’s fear in her eyes, and there’s pride, and there’s love. She has long stopped crying. She outstretches a hand to take the sliver from Illya’s hands, only to drop it. She wraps both her hands around one of his.

“There’s so much you need to know.”

“Hold me, Elias.”

Illya circles her waist with both his arms. She free-falls into him, and he softens both their landing with his weight, back on the floor.

Bitterness fades in her kiss, death dissolves in the beat of her heart against his. She frees him of the cold wet grip of his shirt, but not of his guilt – aching and scraping at his skin like the porcelain chips stuck between his shoulder-blades.

Despite the filth of the squall and the freezing downpour, her thighs are warm against his hips, and he reaches with his hands for their softness under the wet cloth of her dress. Gaby breaks contact for a moment, looking down at him. She takes one of Illya’s hands and directs it south, to his belt.

Illya complies, watching her taking off her light frock, arms angled up in the air. A rose shedding its petals, he thinks to himself, breath dying in his throat. She joins him again on the floor, her bosoms as hard as marble against his.

This time, time doesn’t stop. Time gets slow and misty-eyed, locks its gaze with the one of its lover, tears into tears. Shivers upon shivers, time is cold and wet; its breath is a whisper and a moan, broken off by hungry kisses.

Later on, they sit up on the floor, side by side, backs leaning on the kitchen counters. Illya tries to speak, but his voice is feeble – it breaks. He entangles the fingers of his left hand with Gaby’s right, resting idly on the wood of a ruined board. He tries again.

“My real name is Illya.”

***

The bartender, a mountain of flab and grease with no hair, sweeps the filthy counter with his rag one last time.

“Closing time, cowboys.” He hollers through his gap teeth and his cigar.

The bar room is empty, except for a few shadows, figures shrouded in dim light and smoke. Here’s the old man fallen asleep in the corner – Bill, the shoemaker, head on a table cluttered with beer bottles and cigarette butts – there a foreigner who answers to the name of Bone, the golden lion on his cane taking a nap between his legs, a dozen flies hovering about, Napoleon.

Napoleon staggers to his feet, the floorboards creaking – or perhaps the ceiling, but he cannot tell – it is as if he had come to stand up in the dry mouth of a drunken beast. He takes one more swig from his bottle, a swig that lasts long after the last drop has rolled down his throat. The room around him spins, a blur of orange lights and green glass, the dark wood of its walls and tables and ceiling and floor shining like spilled oil in the moonlight. Pictures hang on the walls, angled in impossible ways, loose nails, thin frames; Louis Armstrong blowing his trumpet away, a Coca-Cola pin-up doubling into twins in bikini.

“Lonely night, huh, Napoleon? Come on, for Christ’s sake.” The bartender insists.

Napoleon ignores him, approaching the counter with one hand in his right pocket, rummaging for coins.

“One last drink, what do you say?” He tries, “For everyone. On me.”

“You don’t even have enough to pay for yours. Go home, buddy.” The bartender shakes his head, slaps his rag over his shoulder, crosses his arms over his chest. Bone, knotty fingers clutched around the golden lion, leaves the bar without no other sound than his limp.

Neon light paints the dirt road in front of the bar blue and red and yellow. “Damien’s Cave”, the neon says. Napoleon can see it from inside, through the foggy windowpanes and the fluttering of their thorn and shredded curtains. The door swings open, neon leaking in, and then shut again. Light smears the dirt and dust of the floorboards as three men walk inside.

“Sorry gentlemen, we’re closing.” Damien says.

Napoleon recognizes Connor’s lean figure leading the small group, his chiseled features emerging in a chiaroscuro of skin and bone in the bar room’s light. He hears him speak.

“It’s okay, old man. We don’t want no drink.”

The other men exchange sly smiles. Nobody is too keen to notice, but they wear cheap suits, one pinstriped, the other plain grey. They look arrogant and ridiculous at the same time, looking around in contempt – there just to play a part. Their shirts could as well been stolen from an old man’s grave.

“What, then? I have a shotgun. This is not worth it.”

“Relax.” Connor says, emotionless, his eyes and step pointing at Napoleon.

Napoleon does his best to keep his eyes glued on Connor. He looks at him but he can’t see what he’s become anymore. Or perhaps it’s the rye whiskey, he debates within himself – the whiskey, the darkness, the hour.

Instead, memories slip through the backdoor of Napoleon’s mind, and he himself can’t feel his fingertips, his gums, his toes. Just like slipping into a dream. He looks at the first time they robbed a liquor store together, Connor and him – Napoleon’s first time with a balaclava on. Running naked into the river, against the current, after eight hours of being side by side in the fields, backs under a burning sun; bandaging each other’s hands, bleeding and cut to the bone. Sharing drinks and girls and skin; rough sweetness and sweat.

On his way towards him, Connor grabs a table by its edges and flips it to the side. A minor annoyance, a pebble in his shoe. Bottles slip along the surface, crashing against each other and then on the floor. Damien’s protests go unheard. Bill the shoemaker twitches in his sleep. Connor’s companions take their seats to enjoy the show.

Napoleon squeezes his eyelids shut when cold and foamy saliva hits him midface. He feels it streak across the bridge of his nose. Napoleon is too numb to tell how Connor’s forehead is now against his; how the man is grabbing him by the edges of his shirt, fists together, up to his throat. But his ears don’t betray him.

“You disgust me.” Connor utters.

Napoleon pushes the man away with both hands, and Connor lets him go – although he’s the one to shove him furthest. Without need for any more words, Napoleon charges at him, hands clutched mid-air, inconclusive. He loses balance, gravity wrapping him in a down-ward spiral. Connor dodges in a heartbeat, and Napoleon feels the greasy slap of wood under his cheek – he lands facedown, hands and chest spread flat on a table.

Napoleon feels the blood inside him slow down, thick as lava.

But Connor has no need to wait; he grabs and twists both of Napoleon’s wrists behind his back. He holds them with one hand; the other digs into the back of Napoleon’s hair, pulling at it.

Connor leans over Napoleon to whisper viciously into his ear, “You still think you can get away with this, don’t you, darling?” He slams Napoleon’s head hard against the wood, Napoleon groaning, “A priest. That’s too sleazy, even for your standards.”

“I’m calling the police!” Damien shouts.

“I thought you had a shotgun, what you’re waiting for?” The man in the pin-stripe suit replies calmly, smoke rings coming out of his mouth, a loaded gun pointed at the barman from across the room.

Napoleon struggles to break free from Connor’s hold, but his attempts only result in his sight getting hazier and the scene heavier for his eyes to hold. He can see himself from outside – bended over a table, on his knees. From his makeshift raft, he feels seasick. When he was eleven, his father took him fishing. He threw up overboard. This memory is no use to him now.

Connor stomps with all his weight on Napoleon’s ankle, Napoleon letting out a howl. The pain is enough for him to slip off the table, back down on the floor. Connor crouches over him. For a moment, Connor’s face blurs to the point Napoleon can pretend it’s Illya looming over his numbed yet aching body instead. If only.

“I sure hope that ain’t all you have to say, Napoleon. You might have confessed _some_ of your sins, but we’ll be sure none of them goes a-missing tonight.”

“I’ll say nothing. You’ll know nothing. You can’t—“

Connor’s knuckles rain on him. The lights go out in the bar room.

When Napoleon regains consciousness, it’s still in darkness. He wakes up to the metallic breathing of a loud engine, squeezed between muscles. From the backseat, he looks up at the rearview mirror to catch the eyes of the driver. He’s never seen them before.

His hands are tied behind his back, the taste of whiskey still on his tongue – and something more. A wet handkerchief has been tucked deep within his mouth; the cloth is rough, drenched in alcohol. The taste burns in his throat, white-hot up to his nostrils. It feels like suffocating, and there’s no room to toss and turn.

“Hello there, princess.” The man in the front seat says, turning to look at him. Napoleon stares back, his eyes hovering on the unfitted pin-striped suit seen earlier at Damien’s.

“Well, well, well.” says the driver. Napoleon finally recognizes the voice – he finally realizes. Illya warned him about this. Illya told him all about  _these_ men.

_They don’t joke around, they’ll come for you._  They’ve come for me, Napoleon repeats in his head. They’ve come for me. Alright. They’ve come for me.

“Relax.” Connor repeats for the second time of the evening. This time, there’s something almost affectionate in his voice – almost  _again_. Napoleon looks at him, at his soft mouth, at his Greek nose. Connor, sitting on his left side – Connor, hurt, betrayed, who has switched side. Out of revenge? Out of passion? Out of greed? Napoleon looks down and stiffens as the young man rests one of his long-fingered hands on his leg, way higher than his knee.

“We’re all friends here, aren’t we?” the driver continues, “Just old friends having a chat. Catching up. We figured having Connor around this time would have made things easier for you, Napoleon. Isn’t that nice?”

“Extremely.” Connor whispers, his hand still on Napoleon. The man sitting on Napoleon’s right starts, shakes from laughter inside his grey suit.

“Of course, we want things to be nice. To run smooth. But what if they don’t?” The driver suggests.

“What if they don’t?” Pin-stripes in the front echoes.

“Please Connor, demonstrate.” The driver says.

Connor rolls his eyes dramatically, a gifted child annoyed by his father’s request to show the guests once more what he’s capable of. With his free hand, he pats his own shirt and stops only to fish out a lighter. He flips the lighter open, the flame being the only source of light inside the vehicle. He holds the flame just below the wet rag choking up Napoleon. Napoleon starts trembling, Connor’s hand a steady grip around him.

_They’ve come for me. They’ve come for me. They’ve come for me._

Napoleon closes his eyes.

_I want you. Fuck them._

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> first half:  
> \- illya and gaby do some talking after burying that horse  
> \- (especially about their past. their past is shit btw)  
> second half:  
> \- napoleon has a HELL of a ROUGH talk with his Gang Guys and a CIA contact.  
> \- i'm sorry napoleon for all the things i do to you
> 
> PS: i know i haven't updated in a year, but the story literally picks right from where i had left it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was sure i couldn't write anymore but I wanted to prove myself wrong.  
> if you enjoy this or even if you hate it, please let me know in whatever way!  
> i'm sorry in advance for any typos, it's 2:00 AM and I am a fool.

“I haven’t come back home in years. _Hadn’t..._ ”

Illya notices the vague trembling in his own voice. An inflexion that so much resembles the careful engineering of regret that his trade has imposed him to adopt over the years. A habit as natural as intercalary. Only that this time it’s sincere. He breaks through himself.

“Until we met.”

The night is deep, and from inside the house, crouching like an ill-fed animal over the land below, the valley seems to disappear, to just slope down straight into hell. Illya swallows some more rye whiskey and draws the torn lace curtains back into place. He turns around to face Gaby, sitting on the floorboards in front of the fireplace. She has gathered her knees in her arms, head resting on the blackened skin over the bone. She does not look at him. The light comes crackling all over her, exasperating her quiet beauty.

“Your home… Moscow.”

She seems well-intentioned not to meet his eyes. Yet she can’t help to feed him slow and careful words, even when Illya’s have washed over her so dense and heavy for the last hour or so, as he gave names and dates and motives to what to her had always just been the mysterious and sacred force that brought them together. She does not understand everything, but she understands enough.

Gaby looks at him nodding in silence, nodding to the bronze liquid at the bottom of his glass. She sees Illya, perhaps for the first time, and she sees Saint Sebastian with his arrows; Paul crossing the gates to Damascus, feeling unchanged. She sees a Russian man wearing nothing but an old dressing gown with holes in it – her husband’s. Life could not break Illya, but she isn’t so sure to be able to fix him. She looks away from him, afraid that their eyes should start talking.

 “Gaby, I have no idea who’s after me anymore. This might not be the right place for me anymore.”

She had no idea she could love a martyr, not this way. Nor that she could love him all the more for baring his wounds like this. Something strikes Gaby deep in her chest. Her body unknots, and she rises to her feet, walking towards Illya. There are things she needs to explain to him, but doesn’t really know how.

“I know somewhere you can hide. For a while. Illya, look at me.”

The space of a chipped whiskey glass divides them now. Illya obeys, but contradicts her, “We’re past that now. They’ve got me. They could get me any time now. And I don’t want you to get mixed in all of this.”

What hit Gaby’s heart moments ago, now starts to itch, “I don’t get mixed in things. I decide when to stay and when to go.” She’s not afraid to let each and every word vibrate with a tinge of fear as of exasperation. To compensate for the harshness, Gaby reaches up to cup Illya’s cheek with one hand.

“It would be easier if you just started hating me, Gaby. I told you all of this for that sole reason.” He lies.

“You don’t mean what you’re saying.”

“I do.”

“Illya… If you need to run, just run… But don’t—“

“I’m not going anywhere. This is it for me. I have nowhere to go. They have files on me in Washington, boxes of them in Moscow. They’re probably on the phone right now, making schemes on how to carve me up after they get a hold of me.”

Gaby wraps her fingers around Illya’s fingers around the glass. She takes a gulp from it, “This is not what this is about. _They_ just know about us.” The glass shines clean, and Gaby sets it on the mantelpiece before taking Illya’s face in both of her hands, “I’m sure about this.”

“ _They_ – what?

“Town people. Forget your CIA and KGB. I noticed how they’ve been looking at me. Only, I didn’t care.”

“We’ve been careful.”

“You must have been one terrible spy.”

A chuckle escapes Illya’s lips, the first in hours. Gaby doesn’t flinch.

“Don’t laugh at me. The horse – I can’t lose you over my past.”

“I don’t understand.”

She lets one of her hands slide down to his arm, and still by hand, Gaby leads Illya to the sofa. This foreigner, this world-wide traitor, this lover – he looks at her wide eyed, in a tired yet strangely devoted way for the sinner he is on every page of the Lord’s books. Gaby begins with no warning.

“I was twenty-four. Napoleon and me, we had been married for almost two years. His father was still alive, and he still hadn’t gambled away every inch of land Napoleon’s family owned. We spent whole days together, Napoleon and me – yes, we did. Just riding around, bathing in the river, falling asleep in the shadow of moss-draped oaks. Oh, he was so different back then. Then one day—“

Gaby sighs, breaking eye contact with Illya. He takes her hands in his and squeezes them light.

“One day, we had been trotting for almost four hours. My horse, a beautiful white stallion… I guess he must have been tired. I never found out if he was sick, but I guess—because Napoleon suppressed him as soon as I—I was pregnant, it was a terrible fall. I lost the baby.”

“Gaby…”

“He hasn’t touched me since. I know I’m buried somewhere deep in his heart, but I can’t stand the sight of him. And he hates me for something… It wasn’t my fault… and he—I told him we should’ve… There was no need to…” Resentment and affliction finally break out on Gaby’s face, and she covers it with her hands. Illya pulls her in an embrace.

For a while, nobody speaks. Just the crackling of the fireplace, a stone mouth of horrors lighting up the tiny wooden living room, and Gaby’s soft sobs into Illya’s chest. Finally, she pulls away.

“That’s why I’m sure that—the horse out there… everyone in town knows. And they know what goes on here when my dear loving husband is too drunk to find his way back home. This has nothing to do with broken state secrets and high treason. Nothing of this was your fault, Illya – not the way you mean. Oh, if they could just choke on their pretend righteousness!”

Illya draws back her in for a kiss or two. She tastes as bitter as tears can be, and he’s never quenched. Whether she’s right or wrong, it makes no difference. He doesn’t want to fight her, now or ever, and he won’t. Strange how he battles Napoleon for control, and how he so easily surrenders to Gaby – how he can almost never wait to give in, and give up.

Even tonight, when she’s so helpless, when future and past are against them both.

“My love, we have nobody on our side.”

***

“He’s fucking your wife, you idiot.”

The words punch Napoleon straight in the gut, heavier than any bashing he has endured on this damned evening. Deeper and dirtier than any blood-fisted punch in the jaw, kick in the groin, slap to his obscenely ringing head. A chair in the middle of a square and rotten room God knows where, electric light above him. He struggles in his restraints, three rounds of rough rope around his throbbing chest, countless around the wrists. He lets out a howl, something vaguely inhuman.

A mocking hand pats him on the shoulder, “Easy now, easy. We’re just talking.” Napoleon looks up as if he could still put things into focus – the Driver pats him on the shoulder one more time, “Aren’t we?”

A nod of the Driver’s head and Connor flashes through the room in slow motion, delivering a real blow to Napoleon’s gut.

“Enough.” The Driver arbiters calmly, and Connor strokes Napoleon’s sweaty brow and hair before lighting up a cigarette and walking back to his position in the corner, Napoleon’s moans orchestrating his movements.

“I have—I have nothing… to tell you.” Napoleon’s head hangs low, blood and sweat dripping on the wooden floor between his feet. He tries to concentrate on a particular red spot.

“It’s fine, Napoleon, we’ll do the talk then. We’ll try and refresh your ideas, what do you say? I’m Abel, remember? I drove us all here,” the man gestures dramatically, but Napoleon misses it, “And here we have Connor, your old friend, right Connor? And then the twins, so handsome in their suits! Cash and Beau. You might remember them from the wild old days. Small robberies, big fun. That’s how it all began with you guys, right?”

Napoleon grunts. Connor starts slow-clapping, “You’re a fast learner, aren’t you sir? For a contact guy. You’re sharp.”

“The big guys… My employers are satisfied,” Abels smiles a wide wonky smile, “Should be good enough for a gang of low-lives, good-for-nothings like the bunch of yous.”

“Say that again!” Connor snaps, flicking open a pocket knife.

“Let it go, Connor.” Beau urges, “We’re here to do business sir, please excuse my associate.”

Abel’s smile stays still on his face. He ignores the little scene, turning back to Napoleon. The words reach Napoleon as they came to him from two million years ago, “So, Napoleon, as we all understand, you had been given a job. Many months ago. Now, we’ve been patient, but the time is almost up, and you know what happens when time starts running out. People get impatient.”

Napoleon feels himself slipping out of himself.

“Listen to me!” Abels slaps him across the face. A thick rivulet of blood reaches from Napoleon’s mouth to the floor.

“I’m—listening… you… fucker.”

“Well-said.” Abel continues, “So, the men in Washington are getting _terribly_ impatient. We understand your—the nature of your relationship with Mr. Kuryakin, but of course, you’ll have to understand how we don’t give a shit. Now, we have tried several times – _several_ – to make you collaborate. As we had established together and _in advance_ , Mr. Solo, nothing more. You see, we gain no pleasure at all from this.”

Connor cackles from the corner. Napoleon’s boiling blood is the only thing keeping him conscious anymore.

“So – _we_ ’ll set the meeting place to get acquainted with Mr. Kuryakin once and far all. To be fair, we have already made arrangements—“

“Do what you want.” Napoleon spits out.

“Huh-huh, Mr. Solo. Not quite right. Something might escape us about your behavior, but here in this room we know two things. One, you have a lovely wife. Two, the boys in your gang are _eager_ to split that reward money the CIA will so handsomely provide. I dare say, they are getting impatient too.”

“You can’t do this. This is against—“

“Mr. Solo, you’re a two bit criminal, a whore. You sold yourself to us long ago. Don’t get sentimental now. Me, on the other hand – I’m the law. Get us Kuryakin, and be on time. Here’s how.”

A white envelope emerges from Abel’s coat pocket. He somehow manages to shove it between rope and Napoleon’s bloodied shirt.

“A beautiful wife you have. Might be unfaithful to you, but quite a lady. I’ve seen pictures of her.”

“You bastard, you—“

“Take him away, boys.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hellooo and welcome to napoleon's whump fest. plus some hurt/comfort i think it's called.  
> first half  
> \- napoleon's POV. hurt and left in the downpour! what a life!  
> second half  
> \- illya takes care of napoleon's wounds and stuff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments are highly appreciated ;-)  
> (incoherent keyboard smashes count as comments***)

They dump Napoleon in St. Rose Street, just outside the church yard. He slips in the rain like a tumid carcass, both drained and dripping; the blood flowing along the sidewalk is his, his is the blood pouring slowly in the sewers.

The town has been dipped in the oil of the night; one thick layer of dark that brings misery as its spoils, crime as its conquest. Poverty and violence and bitterness flicker behind and beyond the yellowing teeth of windows scattered along the way.

Napoleon coughs and rolls on his back; he registers a long shadow cast against the beating drum of the sky, and the moon, and the decrepit houses. The figure disappears as Connor crouches near him. The young man lights up a cigarette, despite the Old Testament downpour. He puts it between Napoleon lips.

“You’ll be alright, _boss_.” Connor says, before getting up and into the car. Napoleon has barely the time to read his eyes. For a moment, the head-lights of the Studebaker illuminate the street – a collection of wooden and stone skeletons packed against each other’s sides – then the tires screech and the vehicle disappears into the night.

Time goes by one century at a time.

Napoleon gasps for air on the ground, panting and shivering, his mouth and lungs and skin meeting nothing but cold water. His body burns and throbs all over; but not the quality of fire to keep him warm inflames his bones. The smoke stick falls limp from his lips, sticks to his chin like a displaced and irreverent patch.

Napoleon thinks about Illya; he thinks about Gaby – he doesn’t think thoughts at all. He has barely the strength to paint their faces in his head – paint them in blood, and dirt, and mud. He jerks his head to the side and spits. The gunk comes out thick and red.

He finally falls unconscious.

At midnight, the church bells resound grave and tenacious, ripping apart the sky – clouds unclot, the bleeding stops. Napoleon opens his eyes again. To that holy sound, his heart resumes his beating, louder and louder, keeping pace with a delirious new thought that pumps in his head from ear to ear, and then precipitates to its mother muscle again.

_I’m gonna kill him. I’m gonna kill him with my own hands._

He gets up, every fiber releasing and contracting with a groan and the friction of heavy breathing coming through clenched teeth. Shaking and unsteady, one arm stretching to find the support of fences and walls, Napoleon makes his way along the street.

He has to stop every few meters – but not long enough for more thoughts to intrude and make his soul vacillate. Feverish, he torments himself.

_You loved him better than you loved her. You never really loved her. Why weren’t you able to protect her? Why weren’t you able to ever touch her again after the accident? You only gave her suffering. You only—you ruined her life with your pride. You’re a coward, a coward, a coward, a coward. A wounded idiot. You want him, but she deserves him. He’s the only one you ever really loved. Really loved. Really loved. Really loved._

_They laughed at you. They’ll laugh again. You’re no man. You’re no man. You’re no man. A wounded idiot. Wounded. Loved. Laughed at. I’m in pain, and I love him, I love him, I love him. You deserve to die, I deserve to die. I’m gonna kill him. I’m gonna murder my love. I’m gonna cut my own heart out. I’m gonna kill him. Let her go, let her go, let her go away. I’m gonna kill him with my own hands._

Napoleon only realizes he’s been crying when he falls to his knees in the rented room he knows so well. He has slipped inside unheard, despite his blurred sight. He has picked the key from under the doormat, where he knew he would find it. He has dragged his dirty boots on the consumed flooring, his murderous intentions giving in to exhaustion and malaise. He has dropped down just in time to grab the sheets on the bed with two fists, head resting on the edge of Illya’s side of the mattress.

Illya is not there. Napoleon shoves his face deeper into the mattress. He inhales deeply, then he lets out a scream that goes unheard. Once again.

***

When Illya comes home in the morning, the key is not there. He reaches for the lockpick in the back pocket of his trousers, his grandfather’s, and one of the only few things he kept dearly as souvenirs from the Soviet motherland, the one who orphaned him. When he gets inside, the spectacle is a sorry one.

Napoleon, on the floor, is giving his back to the door – or better, what’s left of his back. A long gash runs across his shirt, from his left shoulder blade to his right side. Once white, the piece of garment now tends towards the hue that some particularly vicious sunsets possess, without so much poetry. From the slash, crossed by a streak of sunlight that makes an X out of it, Illya has a glimpse of the black, blue and crimson marks that adorn his lover’s skin.

Illya rushes to him.

He kneels beside him, lifting Napoleon’s head from the bed to reveal the horrorscape of pain he had to endure. There are streaks of dry blood running from a deep cut on Napoleon’s right cheekbone; the left side of his face is swollen and blue. A split upper lip, dark clots right below his nostrils, his nose a color and shape that’s hard to define.

“Napoleon! It’s me, it’s Illya. Napoleon, wake up.”

Napoleon mumbles something that Illya ignores. Illya gets up again, then goes behind him; he wraps his arms around Napoleon’s armpits and lays him down on the bed, as carefully as he can. Napoleon keeps mumbling, but Illya is already in the bathroom, changing in an undershirt. The air in the room is stifling, and his heart pounds to the crazy rhythm of concern and emergency.

“I’m coming, Napoleon. Stay with me.”

Illya keeps his eyes glued on Napoleon even from the bathroom, then takes a look at himself in the mirror on the wall. He doesn’t look his best either; his eyes seem to have lost their unflinching ability to mask their every emotion, and Illya wonders whether he should do something about that. Maybe later. He emerges from the bathroom with a towel over his shoulder, a porcelain basin bearing cold water. He sets them on the night table. Methodical, knife-sharp. He walks around the bed to the dresser, where he rummages for his gun, scissors, gauze, a half empty bottle of Southern Comfort. He scoffs at it – these Westerners, and their irony. He steps towards the door and locks it, before finally sitting on the bed.

“What have they done to you.” Illya whispers, a hand on Napoleon’s forehead. Napoleon knows he should turn his head away, but he doesn’t. Still, Illya can feel him tensing. “Relax, Napoleon. It’s just me.”

Illya dips the towel in the basin’s water, proceeding to squeeze it.

“I know— I know who… it is.” Napoleon utters, as if every word was a coal stone to cough up and spit out.

“I’m gonna take care of yo—of all this. You shouldn’t have—“

“You did this to me, Illya.” The accusation slithers from below Napoleon’s tongue way smoothly than the both of them could ever imagine.

Illya doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t reply either. In his heart, the conviction blooms thornier and more malicious with every passing minute spent looking at Napoleon’s state. He got him into this – both him and Gaby. Love loses any meaning at the sight of a house in ruins. Perhaps they thought this day will never come, but it has. His _lust_ for them, and theirs for him – it ruined them all.

Still silent, Illya takes one of Napoleon’s hands in his. He turns it over in his. Knuckles seem to have crushed against the sun, but his palms are no rougher than any other day. Illya looks at Napoleon in the eyes.

“Just do what you have to do.”

Napoleon swallows the hardest chunk of his pride, “I wish I didn’t need you as much—I wish I didn’t need you at all.” His voice is hoarse, his tone bitter.

They are both breathing heavily when Illya unbuttons Napoleon’s shirt and helps him out of it. A few giant flies hover about their heads, and morning explodes outside.

Illya washes the wounds on Napoleon’s chest with the wet towel, squeezing rose water into the basin from time to time. Their fingers and palms meet once or twice, when Napoleon hands back the bottle after taking a swing out of it, preparing for the burning touch of the gauze now below his navel.

“You drink too much, Napoleon.”

“You’re too much to take straight.”

Nobody chuckles. Napoleon makes a hissing sound when Illya pours Southern Comfort on the left side of his ribcage. Illya chases the dripping of honey colored blood with more gauze.

 “Can you sit up?”

“Help me.”

Napoleon wraps an arm around Illya’s shoulders; their faces almost touch, but no one steals each other’s breath. Instead, their shared breathing gets heavier. The trouble is understood. The consequences, the contradictions. Napoleon finds a position, and Illya frees himself. He gets on the bed so that he can face Napoleon’s shoulders. Then he resumes with the wet strokes – perhaps _longer_ now, more gentle now that his patient can’t judge him with cold, resentful eyes – just following rivers of crusted blood with a rag that he wishes could be silk.

Napoleon breaks the silence, and this time it isn’t just a moan.

“You should have left Gaby out of this.”

Illya stops, his right hand somewhere between Napoleon’s shoulder blades, “Gaby is not one to be easily left out.”

“Or alone.”

“Napoleon, please…”

“Our marriage has never really worked out, I think you know by now. Fuck you, Illya, that’s no reason to put _her_ life in danger. You think I didn’t know about you two? When you came around the house, do you remember?”

“Hell poured down on Earth.”

“I thought to myself, here he comes. And I knew why. But I didn’t care then. I thought, here in Louisiana, we have a code. What belongs to the wife belongs to the man, so be it.”

Illya says nothing, but drops the towel on the bed. He almost surprises his hand caressing the back of Napoleon’s head, but stops before the man resumes talking.

“And now she is in danger, but not even for her own sin. Why did you let all this happen to us, Illya?”

“I know—I imagine what they must have told you.”

“No shit.”

“She’s safe now, Napoleon. She’s gone.”

Napoleon’s face falls for a moment in the palm of his hand, and Illya’s reaction is quick as he finally wraps his arms around Napoleon’s chest, chin resting carefully on Napoleon’s left shoulder.

“She’s safe.” Illya whispers in his ear, “She’s gone.”

Napoleon turns his face to that heated promise, and inevitably welcomes its wet ardor between his lips. Slowly, zealous, with meticulous caution. Illya’s hands are splayed tight and wide over his thorax, now pulling him towards himself; Napoleon’s grope around the sheets for balance.

“She’s safe.” Illya continues, one hand wrapped lightly around Napoleon’s neck. He nods it off in their kiss, impatience growing hard inside him. He gasps for air and turns around. With the last ounce of vigour left in his body, Napoleon pulls at Illya’s undershirt, tearing it in two, and off. He shoves him down, hand flat over the tumult of Illya’s heart.

“She’s gone. She’s gone.”

And so are they.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOBODY WOULD REPLY "NO SHIT." TO ANYTHING EVER IN A SOUTHERN GOTHIC CONTEXT BUT HERE YOU GO I GUESS.

**Author's Note:**

> Please suggest me tags, I'm desperate.


End file.
